(I apologize if you were on this morning-I just happened to look on here and see that for some reason my post today didn't load-here it is-just a little late!)
I can't believe that we are almost through! How are your homes looking? Do you still have specific areas that you need some help on? If so, shout them out today so I can cover them in the next two posts. Otherwise I'll keep plugging along with my current list.
I thought today we could discuss toys and books. As I look around my house at what clutters my kitchen, there are bound to be toys on the counters and a stack of books. We've already covered library books in a previous post so I'm not going to cover that further. As for all of your other books, here are a couple ideas:
Walk around the house and look at each bookshelf. Make an estimate of how much space each genre of books will occupy. Decide where in your home you want books of certain types to be. You might want your reference books on the bookshelf in the office, for instance, while popular fiction and literature could go on the bookshelf in the family room.
The best bookshelf organizing scheme is one that makes sense to you. Books should be where you will use them, though you might want to put your nice-looking books of all subjects on the bookshelf that visitors to your home see. Once you have come up with a basic bookshelf organizing plan, take all the books off one bookshelf and begin to organize them into the categories you came up with, or at least into the different rooms where they will be housed, if you have a bookshelf in more than one room.
If you read to your children at night, have a small bookcase in their bedrooms, or close by. Just remember that these books are accessible to your kids! So if there are books that you consider "prized", do not put them at a level where your kids can pull them out and build ramps with them, or add their own artwork to.
Cookbooks are pretty useless if you don't use them! If you still own some, make sure you have them accessible when you're cooking. We purchased a small baker's rack for the corner in our kitchen and it holds all of our cookbooks and a couple decorative items. I like that it's decorative and adds to the space, but is very functional also.
Ok, once you've gotten an idea of where you're going to store your books, figure out if you have enough room for the books you have. If you don't, your two options are to buy an additional bookcase or purge! I prefer the purge method. Yes, I love books, and I know it might make some of you cringe to think that I'm going to suggest getting rid of some. But honestly, do you need to keep them all?!? I know that I've bought books on a whim when I've been at the bookstore, come home and read it, and it's not good enough to read again. I also have books about raising babies and such that I don't need as we've passed that "phase". Additionally, I have a mound of college textbooks that are just taking up space.
Sit in front of your first bookcase, remove all books from the first shelf, and start sorting. We're making four piles-keep on this bookcase, keep in another location, donate/sell, recycle. Once you've done the whole bookcase, go ahead and put your pile of "keep on this bookcase" back on the shelves. You can do this a couple different ways. Do you want to alphabetize them? Or group by subject or genre? When you get that itching to read, does an author's name or book title pop into your mind, or a subject/genre? Follow that as a guide as to how you're going to organize them. And remember, if you have small kids, either don't fill up the bottom shelves with books, or only place books there that are child friendly.
As for donating/selling, you'll need to do a little research here, and decide if it's worth the time and money to sell them. I sell a lot of my books (esp. textbooks) on Half.com. You can also do it on Amazon.com. Just make sure that you have time in your schedule to run to the post office once you sell them. If you don't, consider a book swap (like on Goodreads.com), donation, or if they are good books, in good condition, you could use them as gifts if you think a friend or family member would enjoy reading them.
I would guess that probably at least 70% of our books are religious. I've got them sorted by "old testament", "new testament", "book of mormon", "Doctrine and Covenants", "Prophets", and "Reference" for all the manuals and seminary/institute books. As its a new year, we've changed book. I only keep 1 copy of previous manuals for reference. Remember, books are recyclable! I also have managed to collect a million of the study guides for each year of study. Weed those out and only keep 1 or 2.
Remember when putting your books back on the shelves that you can stack them vertically and horizontally. I like to mix it up for a change. If I have some books laying flat on the shelf, I put a smalled framed photo or something on top to make the shelves more appealing. I think shelves look a lot better if you mix knick knack/photos on the shelves with the books.
Ok, now toys! I'm so happy that our house is just about passed this phase. We actually have gotten rid of the toy room!! I think the key to keeping toys organized is containerizing, again! You can purchase many different toy organizers out there. We used simple, inexpensive bookcases that were only as tall as the kids (so they didn't try climbing them to reach high shelves). I bought clear storage bins with lids (it helps if you use all the same size, or ones where the lids are interchangeable). I took pictures of the toys, printed them with the word underneath, and laminated them. So I'd have a picture of legos, with the word Legos under it, and attach it to the bin. This way your kids will learn to organize them too! We did have a large rubbermaid bin for all the large trucks, but it's funny because once I put the toys in there, the kids never played with them. Jarrett said that it was too hard to "dig" through all of them to find what he wanted. And when we had friends come over, they would simply dump this huge bin out, to see what's in them. So I do NOT recommend a large toy box! Smaller bins, on a shelve system, work great!
Another tip-you don't have to have all your kids' toys out at once. Put some in a large bin, and store it away for a couple months. Then when your kids are getting tired of their toys, bring the bin out, and swap toys. It's like you bought them new ones! They will be so excited!
We keep one small basket (with hinged lid) in our family room. It makes for fast cleaning, and makes a couple toys accessible to visitors. But when the bin is full, my boys have to take it up to their room and sort through it. We have a bookshelf in their closet where they keep their toys now. It still has a couple bins for "cars and trucks", "transformers", and "Bakugan/Pokemon". Jarrett is VERY good at cleaning up and putting the toys where they belong (Kaden I'm still working on!)
We have a bag (pillow case) that I use to collect any toys that I find on the floor after the boys have gone to bed. If they go in the bag, they stay for a week. While we're talking about toys, another thing we do if the kids are fighting over a toy, is to put the toy into timeout! That resolves the issue quickly!
Another thing we do is to go through the toys in November, before Christmas time. It's a great way to clean out the broken ones, ones with missing parts, and those they dont' play with, before they get new ones. Because we've done this for years, and talked about it each time, my kids know that we donate the toys to other kids who might not otherwise have a Christmas. I even take the kids with me to donate them so they can see where they are going.
Now, most of my kids' toys are electronic in nature. I've put a bookcase in their bedroom for their books, but also it has a specific shelf for the Wii games, and two bins-one for misc. Wii pieces like tennis racquets, and the other holds the controllers. The Wii is in their room so that's why I have it there.
Ok, that's all I've got to say today. I know, this one isn't long, but we've had the stomach virus in our home this week and I'm still getting over it. I'm sure there are other tips out there, but my brain isn't fully functional. So please feel free to add any insights you have! I'm gonna go separate my books right now and try to make myself a little spending money....
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